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Line of "Clunkers"


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Politically I am all over spectrum so politics did not factor into decision.

 

I probably could have waited, spent a lot more time and got a better deal but the government blows so many things it was not worth the chance. I had a better deal than one I took but my wife did not want a red car and I was not too hot on red car either so we took the blue one she wanted. We checked a lot of dealers in area and their were not many models with combination of options we wanted and options we did not want.

 

The one thing that really got me nervous about red one was someone (according to dealer) ran down battery and dealer made it seem like it was no big deal because battery was covered under warranty; this resulted in clock and other things not be set. Salesman needed to leave engine running at door. It also had only 7 miles on it but tank was almost empty so we needed to go with salesman to gas station to put $10 of gas into it. Salesman did not even put on plates saying they do this all of time. This combination of things made me wonder about details there. If a good real estate agent was selling car everything would be just right with new car feeling, air freshener in car, full gas, all controls set, etc. In some ways car dealers are like communes because unlike houses salesmen have no incentive for any particular car so if someone tracked mud on floor mats no big deal to them.

 

The battery thing is not an issue. I bought a car that I picked out from the internet... The battery was dead... I had them put a new one in... Hasn't had a lick of problems in 3 years... I did get me nervous though, but I suppose some cars sit on the lot a long time.

 

The one thing that would have made me really nervous about the dealer in general was the gas thing you mentioned... I would have balked too!!

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I think the CARS program sucks and has nothing to do with trying to protect the environment at all. My 17-year old Saturn burns massive amounts of oil, spews heaven knows what horrors into the atmosphere, *barely* passed smog by a whisker and only because I disconnected the vacuum lines and stuck my fingers over the intake/outake ports for five minutes while the evap test ran, yet it's apparently not a clunker, because it got 28 mpg combined in 1993. But as a taxpayer, I get to subsidize the folks trading an 18mpg car in perfect operating condition for a new 22 mpg car. Yippee.

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